Windows Phone has posted its highest ever level of 8.2% across the five major European markets and Apple has grown its U.S. share to 43.4% of sales, according to a Kantar report.

“Android and Apple take the lion’s share of the headlines and continue to dominate smartphone sales, so it’s easy to forget that there is a third operating system emerging as a real adversary", says Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. "Windows Phone, driven largely by lower priced Nokia smartphones such as the Lumia 520, now represents around one in 10 smartphone sales in Britain, France, Germany and Mexico. For the first time the platform has claimed the number two spot in a major world market, taking 11.6% of sales in Mexico.”

Microsoft and Nokia are reportedly having success in convincing first time smartphone buyers to choose Windows Phone with 42% of sales over the past year coming from existing featurephone owners. That's a much higher proportion than Android and iOS.

Kantar also noted that Apple continues to perform well in the U.S. but BlackBerry has seen significant declines.

Apple continues to perform very well in the USA where it has grown its share to 43.4% of sales. It is also continuing to show strong year on year growth in Britain, France and Mexico. Sunnebo explains: “Apple and Android must focus on a balance between retaining existing customers and attracting featurephone owners to trade up if they want to continue their success over the next year.” Following a difficult year, BlackBerry now accounts for just 2.4% of sales across the big five European markets and 1.2% in the United States.

Every week, there are news report stating that Apple's share is up, down, improving or in the tubes. The same with Google and now Windows. I've given up on believing ANY of these estimates, as they seemed to be geared more an existing fan bases than on any actual news.